eep him
in countenance: nor can this be attended with any ill inference, since
he everywhere teaches this moral: That the greatest and truest happiness
which this world affords, is to be found only in the possession of
goodness and virtue; a doctrine which, as it is undoubtedly true, so
hath it so noble and practical a tendency, that it can never be too
often or too strongly inculcated on the minds of men.

BOOK I

CHAPTER I

The author dies, meets with Mercury, and is by him conducted
to the stage which sets out for the other world.

On the first day of December 1741 [1] I departed this life at my
lodgings in Cheapside. My body had been some time dead before I was at
liberty to quit it, lest it should by any accident return to life: this
is an injunction imposed on all souls by the eternal law of fate, to
prevent the inconveniences which would follow. As soon as the destined
period was expired (being no longer than till the body is become
perfectly cold and stiff) I began to move; but found myself under a
difficulty of making my escape, for the mouth or door was shut, so that
it was impossible for me to go out at it; and the windows, vulgarly
called the eyes, were so closely pulled down by the fingers of a nurse,
that I could by no means open them. At last I perceived a beam of light
glimmering at the top of the house (for such I may call the body I had
been inclosed in), whither ascending, I gently let myself down through a
kind of chimney, and issued out at the nostrils.

No prisoner discharged from a long confinement ever tasted the sweets
of liberty with a more exquisite relish than I enjoyed in this delivery
from a dungeon wherein I had been detained upwards of forty years, and
with much the same kind of regard I cast my eyes [2] backwards upon it.

My friends and relations had all quitted the room, being all (as I
plainly overheard) very loudly quarreling below stairs about my
will; there was only an old woman left above to guard the body, as I
apprehend. She was in a fast sleep, occasioned, as from her savor it
seemed, by a comfortable dose of gin. I had no pleasure in this company,
and, therefore, as the window was wide open, I sallied forth into the
open air: but, to my great astonishment, found myself unable to fly,
which I had always during my habitation in the body conceived of
spirits; however, I came so lightly to the ground that I did not hurt
myself; and, though I had not the